A sawdust collection assembly for a saw is shown for collecting sawdust and, more particularly, for saws of various types in collecting sawdust. A tensioning system used in attaching the sawdust collection assembly is also shown.
Users have typically had to cope with the very high volume of flying sawdust particles and wood chips generated by miter saws and other saws. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), wood dust particles are known to cause health problems including eye and skin irritation, allergy, reduced lung function, asthma, and nasal cancer. Further, wood dust is known to be a human carcinogen. As a result, in order to protect themselves, workers have undertaken the cutting of wood outdoors, wearing masks, building makeshift containers, enclosing the rear portion of the saw or building plastic enclosures around their work area. One difficulty that arises is that cutting wood outdoors is often limited by poor weather conditions. As a result, work schedules are often disrupted when conditions do not permit cutting outdoors. Additionally, dust particles and wood chips that drop to the ground are frequently tracked into living areas of the home and get lodged in carpets and in furnishings where they can create an unhealthy environment.
A wide variety of sawdust collection assemblies has been designed to collect sawdust generated by saws. However, these sawdust collection assemblies are expensive and can only be used with saws of specific types. Namely, none of them are a universal fit. Furthermore, many of the sawdust collection assemblies can cover just a small portion of the dust path area or result in a significant gap in the coverage of the dust path, causing the escape of substantial amounts of sawdust. Further, installation of the sawdust collection assemblies are troublesome and difficult to adjust according to the positions of the components of the saws associated with the saw dust collection assemblies. Further, the sawdust collection effect is not always satisfactory in various wood cutting conditions including the depth of cut, the size of the work piece, the angle of the cut, the bevel angle, the size and speed of the saw blade, how quickly the saw blade is pushed into the work piece by the saw operator and especially when a singular cutting operation involves a combination of any and all of these cutting variables.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a dust collection assembly that is easily adaptable to any make, model or type of miter saw that will capture sawdust that travels across a dust path that is higher and wider than the evacuation paths of virtually all dust chutes, exhausts and funnels that have been designed for saws to date. In addition, there is a need for a sawdust collecting assembly that will be proximate to the actual cutting action of the saw blade regardless of the cutting conditions. Further, there is a need for a sawdust collection assembly that will collect virtually all of the sawdust, does not require the removal of existing structures, will work in combination with a variety of vacuum sources, is easy to install, is easy to adjust and is inexpensive to manufacture.